Weeks 1 and 2
A resolution of mine has been to visit at least one exhibition a week, a decision which led me to Barry Le Va’s retrospective exhibition at Fruitmarket. Titled In a State of Flux, the show left me with one burning realisation; I could just curate Barry Le Va in my own home. I mean I’m sure my housemates wouldn’t mind, in fact I don’t think they would notice. What’s one more object left idle on the floor anyway?
I’ve been reading about the artist-as-curator for class, but what about the curator as artist? Le Va’s postminimalist work encourages the viewer to consider the process behind the creation of each sculpture/installation, with the artist stating ‘I hope that somehow people who see my sculptures are going to learn something through the process of investigating the work on its own terms’. (1)
The exhibition places the curator Christiane Meyer-Stoll in a unique position whereby they must recreate Le Va’s work using his instructions and methods. As put by a publication by the New Museum, ‘(Le Va’s) visual structures are nothing but an aid to thinking and belonging to the psychological apparatus which draws the conclusions, not the content of the thoughts themselves’. (2) Therefore for this exhibition, with his diagrams functioning like ‘musical scores or compositions’, the staff at Fruitmarket are equipped to reinstall his works in the years after his death. Therefore while the work is still technically Le Va’s, the curator plays a crucial role in the conception of these pieces (3)
The exhibition begs to question: what happens with the sculptures after the exhibition? Do they still hold value? Is the value determined by the exhibition’s status as the first major exhibition of Le Va’s art in the UK? Or does it come down to the meticulous recipe following by the Fruitmarket staff which saw them position silver marbles and felt upon coordinations determined by a laser, or aim and shoot a gun before a pipe?
(1)
Barry Le Va: In a State of Flux @ Edinburgh Fruitmarket Gallery
(2)
https://d2b8urneelikat.cloudfront.net/media/collectiveaccess/images/1/3/3/20007_ca_object_representations_media_13375_original.pdf
(3) https://d2b8urneelikat.cloudfront.net/media/collectiveaccess/images/1/3/3/20007_ca_object_representations_media_13375_original.pdf
